Exertion
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'Castle narrows his gaze on her, risks a brave step closer. "Beckett, were you really doing yoga when I got here?"' An insert for 4x02, 'Heroes and Villains'.


**A/N: This piece was originally prompted to me and posted on tumblr, but due to a few requests to share this here as an individual story as well, I hope those of you who may have seen this story already don't mind its reappearance.**

* * *

 _Prompt: "When Castle arrives at Beckett's door in 4x02 she was not doing yoga. She was getting herself off."_

* * *

She opens the door, panting for air but with a smile on her face, the "hey" she greets him with practically a gasp, and wow, yeah, he definitely should have called first.

"Yoga," she breathes out, her chest glistening with sweat and stray strands of her hair clinging to her forehead, her body heaving with it, and Castle strains to keep his eyes on her face. "I was doing yoga, Castle. Come on in."

"Yeah, of course," he concedes quickly, stepping inside and trying not to stumble. Or blatantly stare at her. "Yoga. Gotcha."

Is yoga really so strenuous? He's always heard good things, but she looks as if she's just ran a marathon, her skin damp and flushed, the hair in her fishtail braid barely holding together, and her body still trembling with leftover energy apparently.

He seriously wishes he had been able to witness her complete this workout.

"Does yoga help?"

"With?" she inquires, walking past him towards the kitchen table where her water bottle sits in wait.

He shrugs. "Stress, tension, old injuries?"

"Supposed to help exercise the mind, body, and soul. So yeah, covers most of that," she murmurs, swallowing a long gulp of water. "What is it you found? I need to finish the session."

Castle quickly pulls out the comic book pages, lays them out across the tabletop. Beckett listens to him with rapt attention, following his line of theory, but he can't help noticing the frequent shifting her body that she continues to indulge, the fact that her cheeks fail to cool, remaining a shade of bright pink he isn't accustomed to seeing on her skin.

"Our killer is the writer of this comic book, Sean Elt," he concludes, earning her nod of approval, delighting him with the flicker of pride and burn of resolution in her eyes.

"Good work, just let me squeeze in a quick shower and then we'll go pick him up."

"Okay, I'll just wait in the living room," he quips, but Beckett interrupts his start towards the sofa with a strangled noise of protest in the back of her throat.

"No, it'll take me a while, and I have to - wash my hair and everything, so you should just head home for now. I'll pick you up on the way," she insists and Castle tilts his head in confusion, his brow creasing with it.

"Is everything okay?" he asks, studying her fluttering chest, the tight purse of her lips.

"Yes, fine, I just need you to go so I can shower, Castle," she answers impatiently, but did she just… Kate Beckett is gripping the edge of the table's surface, trying with quite a bit of effort not to rub her thighs together.

Castle narrows his gaze on her, risks a brave step closer. "Beckett, were you really doing yoga when I got here?"

She scoffs, glaring up at him with a blooming fire in her eyes, a kind of burn that smolders, and flicks her gaze to the living room, the mat laid out across the floor.

"Is that _all_ you were doing?" he inquires further and she rolls her eyes in irritation now, points towards the door.

"Go home, Castle."

Oh, how he hates those words.

"Why so impatient to be rid of me?" he muses, deciding that he was going to have some fun with this, really rile her up. "Am I driving you crazy in the good way?"

"No, just crazy. Nothing good about it," she mutters, but her body stiffens ever so subtly as he draws closer, coming around the table to stand in front of her, to feel the emanating heat radiating in waves from her skin, her shuddering chest.

He drifts his eyes to her mouth, back to her gaze again in a move he'd stolen from her, one that has certainly made him crazy in every way imaginable over the years, and watches in delight as the line of her throat ripples.

"I can make it good," he hums, smirking even as the searing arousal rolls through his stomach, spills through his blood. "If you want."

"Castle-"

"I'm sure it started off as yoga," he murmurs, the scene unraveling through his head, from his mouth, so effortlessly. "A diligent workout to calm your mind, clear your head, unintentionally allowing your thoughts to drift to other things, your body reacting, a different kind of energy-"

Kate pushes off from her side of the table, her hands finding purchase on his chest and shoving him backwards the few steps it takes for the backs of his knees to hit the couch, the breathless gasp rushing past his lips before he falls into the cushioning.

"You just never know when to shut up," she sighs, but she's following his descent to the sofa, her body folding with his - knees bracketing his thighs, spine bowed as she clutches his ears in her hands and slants her mouth over his.

Castle groans, can't help releasing the sound when he has Kate Beckett in his lap, slipping her tongue past his lips and stroking hard, sinking into him in the same moment, already rocking against his body with purpose like he's always dreamed.

He grabs her by the hips, tries to still her, at least slow her, but Kate bites down on his bottom lip, punishes with the grind of her hips.

"I _was_ doing yoga, but I'm - I was feeling frustrated so I just - and then you came over while I… I wasn't finished," she breathes, pressing a kiss to his upper lip, the corner of his mouth, and he thrusts his hips at the knowledge, the realization that he'd knocked on her door, interrupted her while she was in the middle of a task he'd kill to take participate in.

She moans and rolls into the rise of his body, pants harshly against his mouth and nods her head in encouragement as his hands slide beneath her tank top, palms gliding over slick skin. Her shirt comes off and he wants the black sports bra gone too, but he becomes too quickly enraptured by the exposed skin of her chest and throat now accessible to his mouth, in licking the sweat from her flesh and feeling her pulse pound beneath his tongue.

"Castle, Castle, I need - more," she mewls, cupping his face in her hands and reclaiming his mouth, tongue darting inside, painting him in heat with every stroke and caress, stumbling when his fingers feather over the incision scar beneath her ribs.

He wants to ask if it hurts her, if the extra movement of her body above him tugs at all, because he can't focus, can't savor any of it, if he's too afraid to hurt her.

Rick shifts from the sofa, sitting up and unsettling the comfortable drape of her body atop him, feeling more than hearing her grunt of disapproval. But the movement is quick as he grips her thighs, standing briefly and swallowing her surprised whimper only to bend once more, deposit her body to the couch, switching their positions, and follow her down.

"What - what're you doing?" she gets out as he kisses a path down her throat, nipping at the swell of her breath straining against the edge of her sports bra, and traveling down the quivering line of her abdomen, exhaling hotly against her navel and listening to her choke out his name like a curse.

And then he's tugging her yoga pants down with the hook of his thumbs in the waistband, dragging her underwear along with them.

Her hips arch without prompting, allowing him to lower the pants past her thighs, never removing his lips from the sensitive flesh below her belly button, relishing in the quivering contraction of muscles beneath his open mouth.

He'd essentially promised to wait for her only a matter of days ago, sitting beside her on the swings and speaking forlornly about a wall that keeps him from her; safe to say going down on her goes against their tentative agreement, but it's too late to stop and he doesn't want to.

He loves her, he missed her, and he wants nothing more in this moment than to taste her, hear her fall apart beneath his mouth.

"Kate?" he murmurs, nudging his nose to the apex of her thigh, trying not to fall victim to the enticing heat between her legs just yet, the glistening arousal and aching need that calls to him, echoes in his groin.

Her legs squirm within the confines of the pants, wrestling with the fabric until he helps tug it down one leg, lets her kick it off and hook her ankle at his flank, attempt to jerk him closer.

"Fuck," she gasps when he brushes his lips to her inner thigh, purposely avoiding where she yearns for him most, layering his hands at her hipbones to steady their quivering dance. "Please, just - Castle, I need-"

"I know," he mumbles, lifting his head, looking up to meet her eyes staring back at him, so dark but sparkling, jaded greens and molten amber, blends of gold illuminating the ink black of her pupils that consume almost all light in her eyes. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that _he_ would make Kate Beckett look like that.

The exhale of his breath to her center has those eyes fluttering closed, her chest hitching, shuddering with the moan that falls from her lips as he finally lowers his mouth to her, drags his tongue through her folds and hums at the taste of her, the gushing heat.

"Oh - _Rick_ ," she gasps, her voice on the sharp edge of a sob, her legs shaking against the hands he uses to hold them apart while one of hers releases the top of the couch she'd been clutching, reaches out to grip his shoulder.

He sucks on her clit at the sound of his first name, the pleasant change of hearing it in her home, in a breathy gasp from her mouth instead of a chagrined sigh or sharp slice of her tongue, a sure sign that they were fighting.

Castle coasts a hand up her bare side, slides his palm up the trembling cage of her ribs, grazes his fingers at the edge of her sports bra, hums against her when she releases her tearing grip on the couch to cover his hand, twining their fingers over her breast and pressing down hard.

Her toes curl at his backside, her knees clenching at his hips, hard enough to bruise. She isn't going to last long, had already been halfway there on her own before he had even shown up, but he wants this to be good for her, so good that she wants him to do it again and again and again. So good she never wants to let him go.

Kate's hips jerk hard as he plunges his tongue inside her, dedicates every stroke to undoing her, dividing his attention to caress her clit with a gentle scrape of his teeth, scald her with the heat of his mouth. And when he can feel her so close, just barely hanging onto the final vestiges of her control, Castle closes both of his hands around her hips once more, drags her further down the couch, her lower half supported more so by him than the furniture, and devotes his mouth to her with fervor until she unravels underneath him.

The spill of her arousal coats his tongue, the crescent moons of her nails score the back of his neck where she clings, and the breathless litany of her release consumes his ears.

He withdraws his mouth from her core with a soft brush of his lips, rests for just a moment with his cheek at her thigh before he rises up from between her legs, still on his knees and leaning forward to brush the hair back from her face, soothe her rioting pulse. But Kate catches his wrist, still attempting to reclaim her breath even as she draws him up, tightens her trembling legs around his hips.

"Kate," he murmurs, stroking his thumb along the curve of her brow, watching her lashes flutter open, her eyes having trouble remaining that way. "Go shower. I'll wait."

"No," she hums, the hand that isn't palming his neck managing to slip between them, cup the hard evidence of his reaction to her.

His hips jerk, but he takes a breath, reaches for her fingers. "I'm fine-"

"I want you inside," she breathes, stopping him short and stealing the last of the air from his lungs, digging her heels into his flank. "Join me in the shower, Castle."

Rick draws her body upwards, sitting on the couch with her legs wound around his waist and her arms at his neck, and attempts to continue filtering oxygen to and from his lungs as she kisses him again, a familiar moan staining his mouth when she tastes herself on his tongue.

"Beckett - Kate, I - wall?" he manages, his self-control wavering while her eyes peel open, their noses bumping as she lifts her gaze to him, molten but shy, desperate but restrained.

"Maybe you can be inside of that too," she murmurs, pinning her bottom lip between her teeth. "Maybe you already were. Besides, we kind of suck at waiting."

A startled laugh bubbles from his throat and Castle nods his agreement as she slips her fingers up his neck, into his hair, angles his head to kiss his mouth, gently at first, parting his lips with her tongue, tempting him to lie her back onto the couch, have her here instead.

But Kate's hips rock forward, the fresh bloom of arousal staining his jeans, her breath catching as she manages to grind against the buckle of his belt and - fuck, she was going to kill him.

"You're right," he mumbles, tightening his grip on her body and rising to stand, following her breathless directions to the bathroom, turning on the shower and stripping her of the sports bra while they wait for the water to heat, finding new ways to make her gasp and moan. "There's no way I'd be able to wait to do this again."


End file.
